Silent Whispers
by Kai Whisper
Summary: He'd never meant to fall in love. Not with her. But he did. And now it was all over. Their words were lost to the thunder, naught but silent whispers as the lightning danced across the burning sky.
1. Prologue  The Vengeful Lightning

Prologue - Vengeful Lightning

Lupa crawled toward him, fighting the bolts of pain that flared from her spine as it protested against such abuse. The soil was damp against the bare skin of her arms, the mud soaked through her top and clung to her jeans like maggots to rancid meat. Thunder sounded overhead, and she was blinded as lightning flashed across the sky. The distance between them grew shorter, her gray eyes glistened with unshed tears as she reached a dirt-smeared hand across the cold, damp earth to the unmoving body of her husband.

"James?" she called out to him, her fingers grasping the sleeve of his jacket. She pulled on his arm, her own weak. He didn't move.

She dragged herself closer, blinking away the fresh blood that dripped hot and sticky down her forehead, ignoring it even when it turned her vision red. She cupped his jaw in her hand and turned his face to her own. His skin was as cold as death, it sent a shiver skating up her arm. She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat.

"James?" Her voice was nothing more than a choked sob. A silent whisper muffled by the roar of thunder as the sky was once again set ablaze by the vengeful lightning. She turned her gaze to the burning sky, vision distorted by the hot tears that stung her eyes before escaping their confines to roll down her cheeks.

Was this the end? For all of them?

Would not even their unborn baby survive?

Her hand was resting on his chest, warm against the smooth, slick leather of his jacket. The fabric chilled her through the cotton of her vest, freezing her insides and slowly turning her spine to ice. The top half at least. The feeling stopped a few inches above her hips.

There all feeling stopped.

She shut her eyes, biting down on her lip until she could taste blood. Shouts echoed through the trees towards them. The enemy drew nearer. It really was the end. Faces flashed in her mind, warm smiles and tender laughs. The faces of those she cared about most, and those she would never see again. Al, Score, Lily, Mum, Teddy, Victoire, the rest passing in a blur, before another swam into being in her minds' eye. That of a young boy with dark hair and sharp gray-green eyes.

Their son. The boy who would never even glimpse the sky.

A cough reached her ears. She opened her eyes, dropping them to her husband. Her heart stopped. He was coughing.

He was breathing.

He was alive!

Air hissed past her teeth in a hoarse laugh of joy. Her eyes, that had only moments before been near black with sorrow, were glowing silver. He was alive!

The leaf green eyes she thought she'd never see again smouldered as lightning shot across the sky. His arm twitched, his hand moving to rest atop her own, fingers too numb to thread grip hers as tightly as he wanted to. Lupa smiled, fat tears splashing down onto his face.

"I love you." His voice was hoarse, a dry whisper. But he didn't care. If he was about to die he was going to make sure she knew how much he meant those words.

Lupa dropped her forehead to rest against his own. It was wet and cold, like a smooth slab of ice. She sniffed, blinking away more tears.

"As I love you."

The shouts were loud enough know they could almost make a guess as to the exact distance of their enemies. James reached up a hand leaden with cold and cradled his wife's cheek.

"I'm sorry. If I-" He had expected his voice to crack and cut off, he hadn't expected her to silence him with a kiss like none he'd ever felt before. Loving, joyous, but filled with fear, and bittersweet.

He kissed her back with as much passion as he could muster in his dying state. The enemy cast their spells, words tumbling from their mouths like rivers of blood.

James and Lu never heard them.

The words were nothing more than silent whispers, lost to the raging thunder as the lightning danced across a burning sky.


	2. Right Between The Eyes

_I come bearing updates! Well, an update :P Heh. Anyway, do enjoy. Review please ;D And just a note; Xinju is pronounced Shin-jew, Xia is pronounced She-ah. Have fun :P  
><em>

It was far too early, and James Potter was far too tired to cope with a new Defence against the Dark Arts professor before eleven. Eugh, why did staying up the entire night prior to the first day of classes always seem like such a good idea?

His eyelids were heavy. He sighed, pulling off his glasses and dropping his forehead into his palm, fingers meshing into rebellious locks of brown-black hair. He didn't notice the slight giggle that slipped from the girl sitting next to him, her chestnut curls quivering with her laughter. Eva Wood blinked large brown eyes at the half asleep Potter, cheeks pink. She was oblivious to the fact he was far more interested in sleeping.

At the very top of the class, a third year Gryffindor reached up to scratch her head, ruffling the messy black bangs that crowned her head like a tiara of raven feathers. She yawned, baring teeth a tad longer and a fair bit sharper than most witches and wizards. Sean Finnegan glanced up from the desk parallel, eyes drifting to her chest. His cousin slapped his shoulder, reminding him of the value of manners.

All in all, it was a rather normal pre-class morning. Until the dark haired Gryffindor turned in her stool, throwing an arm over her head to land with a loud 'thwack' against the desk behind her. The left corner of her mouth pulled up in a lopsided grin. An identical pair of Ravenclaws had looked up at the noise, liquid black eyes wide as dinner plates, their hair spilling across their shoulders and down their chests like ink.

The girl, who to be honest looked like a boy from more than one angle, leaned backward, twisting at the waist as she lifted her hand from the desk, black nail varnish glinting in the early morning light. Finnegan couldn't help but note that her skirt went up a few inches when she pulled up her knee under the desk to stop herself falling. Sinead clocked him one on the back of the head, hazel eyes hard.

"Watch it Seanie. And by it no I don't mean her."

He suddenly became very interested in the grain running through his desk.

The twins blinked at the offered hand, glanced at their opposite and nodded, before looking back at the strange girl with the spiky blue-black hair.

"I'm Xinju." said the one on the left, quickly followed by her other half, "I'm Xouri. Chang. Xinju and Xouri Chang."

The girl's grin widened, mischief flashed in the stormy depths of her eyes. "Lupa. Lupa Black. Nice to meet you, Xinju, Xouri."

She lifted the offered hand, grin replaced with an open-mouthed expression of curiosity, and scratched her left temple, dislodging and rearranging her intricately messy hair. There was order in the chaos, as well as beauty. Her gaze drifted around the classroom, landing on the sleeping James Potter. A smirk crept onto her face. She jerked her chin up, lashes kissing as her eyes narrowed to slits, a lust for shenanigans burning at their silver flecked cores.

"What's say we wake up Potter over there?"

The twins exchanged glances and grinned, nodding in sync. Lupa raised an eyebrow. The timing of their movements was exact, right down to the last millisecond. Did they have one of those psychic bonds her mum talked about? She shrugged, eyes drifting back to the eldest Potter as she awaited their verdict.

It was rather peculiar that she'd never spoken to him in the three years she'd been at Hogwarts, with the exception of that time he'd knocked into her in the corridor and she'd dropped all of her stuff on the floor. She'd seen him at quidditch matches, but even in third year, she still didn't have the guts to talk to Madam Hooch about joining the team, despite the encouragement from her few friends about her skills on a broom.

A pair of cleared throats woke her from her musings and she looked to the twins.

"What do you have in mind, Lupa?"

She grinned, lifting her wand as she slid her hand into the pocket of her skirt; she pulled out a black die and sat it on the Changs' desk. She took one more look at James, who was still asleep, then pointed her wand at the die.

"Wingardium leviosa." The two words slid from her lips like drops of liquid glass, smooth and slippery. The die quivered, then bobbed upward with the motion of her wand. The girls' smiled, tanned skin pulling back to bare teeth as straight and white as piano keys. Lupa flicked her wand back over her shoulder then forward without effort. The die mimicked her movements, pulling back before flying forward to hit the eldest Potter on the bridge of the nose.

James' swore loudly a half second after pain exploded right between his eyes. A string of curses flowed out of him in a less than quiet stream. He chanced opening his eyes, only to feel bolts of pain stab him in the pupils. He winced, batting away the cool hand that landed on his arm. His hearing was muffled, all he could make out was a barking laugh that thundered about the class.

Curiosity and a hunger for vengeance got the better of him and he tried to open his eyes a second time. He was more successful, his vision was clear save the dark pulsating splotches that faded every time he blinked, only to reappear a half-second later, along with fresh pain. He eventually made out the shaking form of Lupa Black, arms wrapped around her stomach as she laughed. A noise akin to a snarl escaped him, blood boiling with anger. _No one pranked James Potter! _Unless he pranked them first. But no one, no one made the first move on a Marauder. Never.

But it seemed the girl with the jagged black bangs and silvery-gray eyes had. But she wasn't going to get away with it. _That _he was sure of.

Lupa almost fell off her stool she was laughing that hard. The shocked bout of swearing that had exploded from Potter had been absolutely priceless. Not only that, but it had left her crying with laughter and incapable of breathing. Even the Chang's were having a quiet giggle. She paid no heed to the ruby-throated hummingbird that flitted in through the open window and landed on her desk, buzzing it's wings once or twice as it bounced across the ancient wood. It wasn't until the bird let out a high pitched tweet that she was silent, eyes drawn to the beady eyed creature hopping about in front of her.

Her eyes were wide in awe. She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. The bird continued to tweet it's song. Only when the entire class had fallen silent, save Potter, did the bird stop.

All the colour drained from Lupa's face as realisation sparked in her eyes. Her pupils contracted to dots. The hummingbird's wings buzzed as it flew from her desk to the ancient mahogany structure in front of the board, landing on a pile of leather bound books before flying forward.

The change was near instantaneous and as fluid as dance. Everything seemed to lengthen and change colour, and after the smallest part of a second, a tall woman in her mid thirties was standing in front of the desk, legs crossed, steely blue eyes zoned on Lupa, who was concentrating on a whorl in the grain of her desk.

Her head flicked up as James started muttering unintelligibly, but it didn't require a genius to figure out what he was saying. Unfolding her arms, the woman they could only assume (or in the boys cases, pray) was their new professor, strode her way down the class to James' desk, heels clacking against the stone floor. Well, she strode as much as one can stride in a skin-tight-leaving-very-little-to-the-imagination-probably-slightly-inappropriate-for-teaching-third-years-pencil skirt. Lupa turned in her stool, throwing her forehead into her palm when the brunette stuck out her right hip as she came to a stop, right in front of Potter's desk.

The woman sighed, eyes surveying his face coolly. She pouted, then pulled a wand out of...well...somewhere, although there really didn't seem to be anywhere to store anything in that fitted jacket of hers, never mind the skirt. She pointed her wand at the space between his eyes.

"Episkey."


End file.
